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In the Spirit of Bret Harte

Ryan Sundberg’s re-election must have gone to his head

How dare that recently reelected Supervisor Ryan Sundberg! He actually thought that he had a mandate from the voters to lead the community forward. We guess that being comfortably reelected he must have assumed he was supposed to start showing some leadership qualities.

(From the Mad River Union) Deciding on a new appointment to the McKinleyville Municipal Advisory Committee (McKMAC), Supervisor Ryan Sundberg has said he is “striving for balance to ensure the committee’s recommendations have credibility.” Sundberg went on to say “Kalt represents land use viewpoints that have become politically marginalized due to recent election trends”. But Sundberg said her involvement in the committee will strengthen it. “I want to try and balance that board out and have a wide array of opinions and thoughts on it,” he continued. “I want to have a strong Municipal Advisory Committee so when we get an opinion from them, we know it’s got a wide range of views and it’s something to take seriously.”

This all sounded well reasoned and what you would expect your Supervisor to do. Increase diverse thought so that what flows from the McKMAC reflects the community has a whole and not just a small segment. Wrong! He was put into office by people who only want their view point to move forward. They make no bones about. Dennis Mayo is a more visible example of this power group that exerts so much influence over Sundberg and 4 of 5 Supervisors in office.

It isn’t so much Jennifer Kalt’s ideas they find revolting (and they do find them very upsetting), it’s her effectiveness that scares them the most. Kalt seriously does her homework (She is a scientist as her vocation). She always has her facts straight and can pull up statistics and documents to back everything she asserts. That’s what scares the Ulansey and Mayo types to death.

So Sundberg had the right idea, he just didn’t have the courage to back it up.